Missing in Action
by Big-Babidi
Summary: Uryu was kidnapped, and only someone with Orihime's thought process could find him. Ishida/Orihime


Again.

Not here again.

This marked the fourth day Ishida Uryu missed class.

Orihime felt her concern grow every time she saw his empty seat. She'd tried calling him over the week but an answer never came. With his volunteer hollow slaying on the side, Orihime worried he bit off more than he could chew, or perhaps made a careless but no less fatal mistake against a lesser opponent. Regardless, she was tired of sitting behind a desk feeling scared and helpless. Thankfully she had a day off work and planned on using it by walking straight to Uryu's after class.

She looked around at her classmates. Kurosaki-kun did his best to appear unperturbed, but clearly felt bothered by Ishida's absence. No, she couldn't ask him to accompany her, not without his shinigami powers. He had enough on his mind. The other student capable to crushing hollows had also been absent, but Chad returned her calls and knew nothing of Ishida's disappearance. Tatsuki didn't seem to care either way, simply jotting notes from Ms. Ochi's lecture.

'_Notes? Whoops.'_ Engrossed in her thoughts, Orihime missed nearly everything her teacher said. But even when pencil hit paper, she couldn't fully divert her thoughts from the missing quincy.

* * *

**Disclaimer  
**I don't own _Bleach._

**Summary  
**Uryu was kidnapped, and only someone with Orihime's thought process could find him.

**Notes  
**Round one entry for this year's Bleach Romances Fanfiction Contest. Maybe. I'm not entirely sure I'm actually in the contest.

* * *

Missing in Action

By Big-Babidi

* * *

Once the bell rang and she passed the school gates, Orihime picked up the pace from a brisk walk to a full blown sprint. Moments like this made her glad she kept training, not only for improving combat ability but also the increase in stamina. Solely stopping for crossing the necessary streets, she arrived at the Ishida residence. Luckily he lived far closer to the school than she did, reaching her destination much quicker than anticipated.

Soft fingers pressed the doorbell. Waiting, she peeked inside a nearby window. Her eyes would've seen darkness if not for the beating sun. She saw a couch and a television and no signs of a struggle.

"Ishida-kun!" Orihime called, hand resting on the doorknob. She felt the prying eyes of neighbors and hoped they'd remember she was a friend. "You've been gone from school all week and I'm worried!"

Her arm pushed forward from slightly fidgeting and the closed door creaked open. _That_ put her on alert. Where the Ishida father and son didn't get along, locking their doors was something they never disagreed about. Given Ryuuken's well paying job as Director of Karakura Hospital, an unlocked door gave robbers plenty of expensive crap to steal.

"Ishida-kun! I'm coming in!" She called again before entering the house. Discarding her shoes after closing the door, she made her way to Uryu's room while eyeing her surroundings simultaneously. She'd only visited a few times, but everything seemed to be in order to her best recollection. Her thoughts ran a mile a second along the way. _'What if it was something completely different than hollows? What if he got drunk off of some kind of special quincy beer and was drowning in his own vomit? What if he got his own jetpack and couldn't turn it back off and was flying around to who knows where? I didn't look at the back of the house so what if robots crashed through and broke his legs with ten foot boulder hands?'_

"Ishida-kun?" She knocked on his door, hoping for an answer. Perhaps he was sleeping, missing class thanks to a troublesome illness. If so … if she bothered him, she already planned to apologize and make him some peanut butter sushi in hopes of a speedy recovery. She just hoped he could forgive her.

"Ishida-kun, I-I … um …" Shocked at her own stuttering, Orihime felt her face on fire as she begun staring at her feet. It was liking talking to Kurosaki-kun. She spoke gently, emotions pouring out further than intended. "You've been gone for … for the past couple days, and I wanted to make sure you're all right. I've been … I've been really worried about you." She finished with one of the most caring smiles she'd ever given and no one was there to see it.

Her touching statement only met with silence. Orihime nervously rubbed her toes together waiting for a response. Nearly a minute passed before she tried again.

"If you don't mind Ishida-kun, I'm going to open the door okay?" Another round of silence. She opened it slowly, frowning at the empty bed inside. She looked around, none too pleased with the room's distinct lack of a quincy. However, something stood out. This room normally looked immaculate. Now? Not so much. The bed was still made, but the stacks of paper around were usually properly organized in a file cabinet. He normally put that school uniform on the floor in his closet via hanger. The desk tended to be devoid of any notes and papers on its surface.

Approaching the desk she realized she'd probably crossed a line long ago and simply continuing digging her own grave, but the twisted feeling in her stomach wouldn't go away. Readings its contents, she understood why.

_The quincy belongs to us. Do not attempt a rescue or I will be forced to inflict extensive harm on your person._

_P.S. That goes double if you're super sexy._

_P.P.S. Please ignore her. She is a primitive fool._

Orihime felt her heart leaping to her throat and wanted to cry all at once. How could something like this _happen_? Her legs suddenly felt a hundred pounds heavier. She sat in the nearby chair, letting it all sink in. Uryu hadn't attended classes the past four days. He had been taken four days ago. He'd spent the past four days in the mercy of his unknown captors.

She thought back to the note. According to the paper, this hadn't been a solo operation. The kidnapping involved at least two, and one at least had the mental capacity to write it down. The other was a woman, one deeply despising a sexy savior for the quincy. But why? Why would it matter how someone looked if they were trying to save Ishida? Why would the arrival of an attractive person increase their ire?

Loudly gasping, Orihime reached a conclusion. "They're both girls who grabbed him for themselves!" They were trying to get their skanky hands on her man … friend. On her friend that happened to be a young man.

"Hold on Ishida-kun, I'll save you!"

She shook her head. What could she do? She'd no idea where to start!

Her face lit up seconds later. "I'm thinking too hard. I could start right here! Hmm, I should look at it like a mystery on TV." She clapped her hands together. "Okay! That sounds like a plan."

With a mystery to solve, her focused greatly increased as she surveyed the area. Papers, clothes, furniture, she took in everything on her path to spotting a clue. In a corner by the door was an rather unique object.

"His spare cape!" She cried. The one thing he never left home without. She remembered a freaked-out Ichigo once told her he actually kept that thing under his gym clothes. Reaching for the garment, her hands stopped when they brushed the fabric.

'_Wait a sec! What if the spare cape was meant to throw me off guard? Obviously it's something people would notice first.'_ To the right was a stack of nearby papers. Orihime smiled. _'I won't fall for your tricks you villains!'_

Seated on the floor, she flipped through the contents sheet by sheet. The papers showed nothing but a plethora of advanced calculus problems with perfects scores in red at the top. Sighing, she bounced the homework on her knee but narrowed her eyes at the result.

"That's weird. One of the papers is pointing in a different direction." She then gasped yet again, completely failing to realize she caused the paper's awkward angle during her shuffle. "Maybe that's actually an arrow pointing me to the next clue." She pressed her finger on the sheet's tip. "Now where are you taking me Math-kun?"

Extending her finger, she pointed towards the next area for her investigation.

Back to the desk. To another stack of papers.

Once there she used a different method to proceed. No self-respecting kidnapper would use the same puzzle twice, something she took into consideration. Instead of flipping through the pages, Orihime decided to begin with a thorough analysis of the paper on top. It was an English assignment from the previous month, testing each student to describe their morning solely using the foreign language. Unlike most homework, Uryu had actually missed a point in his execution. He had misspelled the word "cereal", placing an I instead of an A. Ms. Ochi always graded tough on spelling, resulting in a deduction of five points for the error.

Orihime narrowed her eyes. An imperfect assignment from Ishida seemed too unique to be a coincidence. It was placed on top for a reason. It could only be her next step in decoding the super secret message to his whereabouts. She looked at the word again. Cereal. Six letters. Three vowels. Three consonants. A mathematical equation began to form in her head. Breaking each letter down, cereal started with a C. It started with the third letter of the alphabet, followed by the fifth. Three and five. Then came the eighteenth letter, the letter R followed by another E. Eighteen and five.

She furrowed her brow in contemplation. An A was typically the next letter, but not on this page. "Hmm, should I factor in a one for A or a nine for I? My last name starts with an I but Tatsuki's starts with an A. Oh no I'm so torn." She pounded her palm with her other hand. "Wait a sec, Ishida-kun starts with an I too. Of course! It's all connected."

With a nine in her thoughts, she added a twelve for L and finished processing the first numbers: three, five, eighteen, five, nine and twelve. She would add the numbers together, then follow her teacher's example and subtract five from the overall result. The sort of riddle she saw in a movie, she thought it sounded really, really cool. Holding the third rank of her grade for over a year, Orihime mentally solved the equation in seconds. The numbers combined to fifty-two minus five, making forty-seven the answer.

Applying this to her mystery, she dug through the stack of papers on the desk, counting each one until reaching the sum of her math problem. It was filled almost entirely with notes from chemistry, from the periodic table of elements to chemical equations to kinetics. On the lower left hand corner was small note unrelated to anything scientific. Orihime nearly missed it, and had to squint to read its contents. It was nothing more than a simple reminder to stop by the sewing store after school, something about an extravagant dress for Bostov/Kon. Upon discovering the connection between Kon and Yuzu, Ishida always created extremely beautiful feminine clothing for Ichigo's mod soul and Yuzu's favorite doll. The joy on both Kurosaki's faces –for completely different reasons, though Orihime didn't know– from Uryu's kind deeds always warmed her heart. Back on track, the sewing store had a name, one Orihime recognized: Sunflower Sewing.

"Yay I did it!"

She found it.

She found where he was held captive.

Eyes filled with stars, she pumped her fist upwards.

"I'm like a real life detective! Ishida-kun's gonna be _so_ shocked to see me!"

She thought of his reaction. How he'd likely blush and panic while politely telling her she didn't have to do such a thing and feeling grateful. Behavior he showed no one else. It was pretty adorable actually. Orihime flushed, finding herself looking forward to the sight.

She smiled. _'Maybe when all this is over …'_

'_Maybe …'_

She shook her head before bopping herself on it. "I need to save him first silly."

Checking her uniform for cherished and vital hairpins, Orihime took a deep breath. She may have a fight on her hands. Leaving Ishida's home, she kept that in mind on her way out.

* * *

A groan, accompanied by blurry vision.

"About time he woke up!"

This was how Ishida Uryu regained consciousness. He sat in a chair and could feel his arms behind his back. He tried moving but found himself immobile. He instantly became wide awake. They were in a small square-sized room, one filled with electronic equipment along the walls, such as cameras, a large monitor and a diverse selection of medical and … erotic items.

"What the hell …?"

"Please do not be alarmed, Quincy. You have slept for four days."

He knew that voice. Monotone, with a touch of soft femininity. It belonged to the daughter of his greatest enemy, the female shinigami with a consistently neutral expression. He only hoped this imprisonment wasn't her father's idea. Unlike that abomination, Kurotsuchi Nemu could at least show compassion for others. Ishida hadn't forgotten the antidote she gave or the accessory to fight the Bount and lifting his spirits. He hadn't forgotten his last memory of her either, of large boobs to the face. He flushed, another woman with overwhelming assets coming to mind.

'_Hopefully they have no interest in you Orihime.'_

"Looks like he remembers _you_ well enough." A different female's voice stated. It sounded bitter.

Turning to the voice's direction, Uryu really started to freak. Purple hair, black nail polish, white frilly dress and definitely an arrancar. He looked into the cocky face of Cirucci Sanderwicci.

"I thought you were dead!" He ignored her widening grin. "What the hell is going on here? Did that bastard have something to do with this?"

"Who?" Cirucci asked.

"Mayuri-sama," Nemu answered.

The arrancar shuddered. She usually did her best to avoid showing fear but when it came to that creep … she shuddered again. Cirucci didn't feel like answering so Nemu took over.

"Mayuri-sama is partly responsible yes."

Scowling, Cirucci spoke again. "Basically, after I was saved by the shinigami, I was forced to cooperate with those losers from twelfth division to stay alive. Me and Nemu started talking about you sometimes, and Creepy McClown Fuck overheard our conversation. He thinks we're interested in you, so he's ordered us to have your quincy babies of doom and then he'll want them for his experiments."

"W-what?" He heard them incorrectly. He must have heard them incorrectly. Something like this couldn't be happening.

The arrancar scowled. "You think I'm enjoying this? Well think again four-eyes."

"That is not what you claimed earlier-"

"Shut it Nemu!"

Uryu took a deep breath. Then another. He changed the subject while his sanity remained intact. Perhaps their banter was psychological torture thought up by Mayuri. It wouldn't surprise him. "Where are we?"

"We are in the Human World. In the back of a small shop you may find familiar. We have taken over Sunflower Sewing as our base of operations."

"This is Sunflower Sewing?" This looked almost nothing like the shop used to buy fabrics. At least not at first glance. Now that she mentioned it, the floor patterns between this place and the shop were identical.

Cirucci snorted. "Expecting help? Not a chance you idiot. We gave the owners different memories, so they're now working somewhere else. Not to mention the merchandise here is gone, and the lights are out. From the outside, it looks like this place got shut down."

Leaning forward, Nemu once again shoved her chest in Ishida's face. Her usual bland tone became much more exotic. "It means you'll have nowhere to run, and by the time we're done with you …" She leaned in, lips inches from an ear and whispered, "You _won't even want to_."

"What do you think you're doing? And what's with that ridiculous way you're talking?" To anyone else, his words would've sounded like muffled gibberish, but Nemu understood every syllable.

She frowned, vocal tone reverting to normal. "According to Vice Captain Matsumoto, men are likely to respond more favorably to a woman using a seductive voice and making sexual suggestions. The Shinigami Men's Association agreed with her assessment unanimously."

"Well I don't!"

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"What the hell is that?" Cirucci wondered.

"The intruder alert." Leaving the quincy, Nemu pressed a complex pattern of buttons on the wall. An image appeared on the large monitor, showing the empty shop of Sunflower Sewing with a determined Inoue Orihime inside. She strode through the aisles with a purpose.

"Inoue!" Ishida exclaimed. What the hell was she doing here?

Cirucci Sanderwicci felt a combination of shock and rage. "That's … the girl Aizen-sama wanted. How the fuck did she find us? We covered our tracks perfectly. There was no evidence in four-eye's room linking to us here."

Nemu observed the human girl on screen. "According to the data, the ryoka Inoue Orihime is a kind but scatterbrained individual. How odd."

"What, are you saying she just randomly made shit up and it led her to us?" Cirucci asked incredulously.

"The data strongly supports the possibility."

She would've said more, but the opening door grabbed their attention. Orihime pointed a finger at the women with a surprisingly intimidating glare. "You! Get your dirty hands away from Ishida-kun!"

"Inoue! Run! They're ordered to do this by Mayuri! He could be nearby!" Uryu shouted. He knew she'd been training, but fighting them both still seemed like suicide.

"Mayuri-sama has instructed us to have his babies for the sake of science." Nemu clarified. "We are all pleased with this assignment."

Uryu gave a sour look. "You're the only ones."

"Whoa! I'm only doing this for my own sake! It's not like I like him or anything!" Cirucci exclaimed the classic tsundere phrase, and had the accompanying blush on her cheeks to prove it.

"Oh?" Nemu would've raised an eyebrow had she been anyone else. "I distinctly recall you informing me that you would 'ravish him so hard he would need to wear two pairs of glasses'. Were you lying?"

"Shut up Nemu!"

Under normal circumstances, Orihime would've found some enjoyment from two woman arguing about a guy they like. Under normal circumstances, someone she found dear wouldn't be tied to a chair fearing the real possibility of rape. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn't have responded with her hairpins.

"I reject!"

* * *

Far away from Sunflower Sewing, Orihime and Uryu returned to the quincy's home. Back in his room where the mystery started, the pair sat on his bed. He felt glad to be home, not only to escape crazy women but to avoid seeing what was left of them following Orihime's powerful rejection.

"How are you feeling?" She asked pleasantly.

"Great. Your Soten Kisshun is as impressive as always." He smiled.

They sat in silence for a while before Orihime spoke up. She made a promise with herself, and with the young man beside her safe and sound, the time had come to follow through.

"Um … Ishida-kun?"

"Yes?" He saw her looking down and avoiding his eyes, her hands in her lap.

"Do you have any plans for the evening?"

He pushed up his glasses. "Not really. Being captured cancelled anything on my agenda."

"Oh yeah. Silly me." She bonked her own head and noticed Uryu's smile slightly grew. He really seemed to enjoy her eccentricities. "Would you like to do something today? Like go out to eat, or a movie, or dinner and a movie?"

Uryu knew he sucked with women, but the meaning behind her words wasn't lost on him. "You mean … like a date?"

She nodded immediately, blushing.

"Sure. I'd love to." He briefly wondered about her feelings towards Kurosaki, but decided not to dwell on it. She had come to rescue him and now asked him out. A dream come true Speaking of earlier … "Come to think of it, how did you find me there? It seemed like they covered their tracks well."

"I'll tell you all about it on the way!" She flexed her arm. "You'll love my awesome detective work!"

He laughed. "I can't wait."


End file.
